New Delhi, May 26 (KNN) The Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA) in association with the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has invited all stakeholders of ecommerce for a virtual meeting on May 27 to discuss the issue of fake reviews on e-commerce platforms.

They various stakeholders will discuss the impact of misleading reviews on consumers and possible measures to prevent such anomaly.

An invitation letter for the meeting is sent across to major e-commerce entities such as Flipkart, Amazon, Tata Sons, Reliance Retail by Secretary DoCA, Rohit Kumar Singh.

He has also shared a press release of European Commission dated January 20th, 2022 highlighting results of an EU-wide screening on online consumer reviews across 223 major websites.

The screening results underlines that at least 55 per cent of the websites violate the unfair commercial Practices Directive of the E.U. which requires truthful information to be presented to consumers to make an informed choice.

Further, in 144 out of the 223 websites checked, the authorities could not confirm that traders were doing enough to ensure that reviews were authentic, i.e., if they were posted by consumers who had actually used the product or service that was reviewed.

The letter states that ‘It is relevant to mention that with growing internet and smartphone use, consumers are increasingly shopping online to purchase goods and services. Given that e-commerce involves a virtual shopping experience without any opportunity to physically view or examine the product, consumers heavily rely on reviews posted on e-commerce platforms to see the opinion and experience of user who have already purchased the goods or service. As a result, due to fake and misleading reviews, the right to be informed, which is a consumer right under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 is violated.’

‘Since the issue impacts people shopping online on a daily basis and has a significant impact on their rights as a consumer, it is important that it is examined with greater scrutiny and detail,’ the letter states.  (KNN Bureau)